Vacation!!!

Hello friends! The special talk for this year was so great!!!! I know you all must've enjoyed it as well. I forget the exact count we had at our meeting , but I was so happy to see 4 of my bible students in attendance! I've seen something really special about the congregation and I know this exists everywhere, but maybe I just see it more now since we have so many bible students. In English there's the expression "it takes a village to raise a child ". It's the same way with the congregation! It takes effort from each member to make every student feel welcome. Whether its a friendly pat on the shoulder or sitting with the students during the meeting , I've noticed that it really does give a warm loving feeling to the congregation. We're seeing many different ones progress. Raymond has been studying with Adrean for some time now and he's just started preaching with us this week! It's so exciting to see the look on his face, the excitement ! Other students are doing so well too. It's really been such a privilege to watch them progress.

In less then two weeks a big group of us are going to lifestyles , a resort in Puerto Plata , for vacation! I am sooooooo excited! I realized that my Mom and I haven't had any down time since the last time we came to DR in 2012 ! So this will be nice to sit on the beach for a few days and soak up the rays. I'm gonna get so dark!!

Soon we have a new wave of visitors coming in. Graham returns as well as Mario! We're so excited to have them back with us because we need the help! Speaking on help, we just got a new couple in our hall and the husband is an elder! Also we had 4 new pioneers appointed so now we have 26 regular pioneers. But don't forget , we still need help! So please consider coming down to DR!

Below you'll see some pictures.

John

 Every Sunday, Alejandro, Herby and I go preaching in Villa Magesterial after the meeting. Each week, this dog follows us around as we walk all over for our studies. He's always happy and wagging his tail. So we decided our friend needed a name. We thought for a while and couldn't think of one. Suddenly a man was walking in front of us and the dog freaked out and started to bark! He howled and barked until I called him back to us. From then on we've called him John, one of the "sons of thunder".

This is some of the barrios we preached in just last night!

It was a very windy day and poor Loudy lost her umbrella! The wind ripped it right off ! Of course we needed a picture!

Below you'll see this little lizard and it was puffing its mouth out! I thought of my little friend Logan who is in the states now. If you're reading this buddy, I'm still on the look out for lizards !

We hope you friends are doing well!! We fly back May 25th and we'll be visiting until June 10th. This is a shorter trip then we expected , but we didn't want to be gone from our assignment for too long. So hopefully we'll be able to see you all very soon .

Nos Vemos,
Aaron

Refining myself as a teacher

Erick is continuing to do so well in his studies! He continues to ask me every week if he can join me in the preaching work , so now we've really started taking steps in getting him ready to be a publisher. Through this whole process tho, I've seen many things in myself that I need to improve. One area is just being a friend , a better friend , for my students. I've seen that as you get closer to these ones , they reveal things to you that you would never even expect. Such as family problems or other things like this. I've seen that what I need to do is just make my self available WHENEVER I'm needed. I always thought that I was a good friend to my students , but now I've been trying to take a bigger interest in my student's personal lives. Not just being buddies, but now focusing on forming a brotherly relationship. I know this will help me especially as my students continue to progress.

This weekend is quite crazy! The ASL circuit has their circuit assembly , so we have 6 people staying in our house right now. No matter where I look as I type this up, there's someone there!!!! But it's nice getting to know these friends better.

It's crazy that's it's been 6 months since we left the states. Time has been flying and in just another month , we'll be back in the states for a short period of time. We look forward to seeing many of you and we hope we get to see you all!

I'm going to try to post more often! I apologize for the gaps. I've been trying to come up with new ideas so that the blog is more interesting! So bear with me during this transitioning phase.

Nos Vemos,
Aaron

Hey friends!

Hello!!!! First, let me apologize for not posting for so long. I've been a little busy with my students and life in general. But I promise I'll have a new post up here by Saturday , if not earlier. Everything has been going great! I have some exciting experiences for you and a couple new pictures. Once again I'm so sorry!

Nos Vemos,
Aaron

Memorial season!

Friends I apologizing for not posting for so long! The campaign work has keeping us super busy! We have been in new territories lately and we've found a new group of English speakers ! The area is called Santa María and it's very rural. The animals just roam wherever they want and there's so many types! There's dogs, cows, horses and peacocks! It's been a nice change of scenery from the city. The campaign work this year has been a little difficult tho. We didn't receive our invitations for the memorial this year so all our invitation work has been by word of mouth! We got an emergency shipment of invitations but only enough for each publisher to have one! All we could do is show the invitation. BUT I JUST GOT WORD AS I WAS TYPING THIS! We received our invitations tonight!!!! We'll get to enjoy the campaign work now !!! This is so exciting !

I've received some wonderful comments from you friends and I wanted to let you know how encouraging it is for my mom and I to read these! I'll be responding to you all very soon. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments friends!

Below are an assortment of pictures from our campaign work! I hope you enjoy.

We hope you friends are doing well and think about you often !

Nos Vemos,
Aaron

Mind. Blown.

Eric has been doing so well on his studies! He really gets the sense of what we are talking about and we've been using part of our study time to go over the watchtower so that he can have a comment prepared. This past Sunday, I invited Eric and a few others from the congregation over for lunch and a nice chance for Eric to get to know the congregation better. As we sat down Eric announced "I want to be a publisher!" My mind was blown! He told us all after that he wants to study the bible in English only and that he has begun preaching to his friends. I was in shock because I had no warning that any of this was gonna happen anytime soon! So we spent the rest of the lunch encouraging him to keep up his progress. Yesterday I had my mom accompany me on the study and we went over information about proper dress for the meetings and goals to set , such as joining the Theocratic Ministry School. We found out that Eric doesn't own any slacks or a suit, so we're working out a way to get a suit for him. I'm so excited for Eric because this is such an exciting time for him. Hopefully soon, he'll be able to identify himself with Jehovah's people and preach with us. I'm so grateful to Jehovah for letting me help Eric out and aid him in his progress.

On a sad note , many of the needgreaters who were visiting have left to go back home. This is my first time seeing a full "wave" of them come through. We got to know so many well and it hurt to see them go. But with Jehovah's help, they'll be back soon. On a happy note, our next wave of needgreaters are coming soon! And I'm ecstatic to be able to tell you that Graham is returning for a month and a half!!!! I'm so excited to have him back down here!

Below are some pictures of our friends who became more like family for us.

We hope you friends are doing well and think about you often. May is fast approaching so we'll be stateside in just a couple months. Can't wait to be able to talk with you in person!

Nos Vemos,
Aaron

You're my teacher!

We've had many friends who had stayed with us here in Santiago for up to 3 months and now they're returning back home. I feel really sad seeing them go because we've gotten so close to them and now we know we won't see them for about another year or so. So this week has been sad. Almost all the group supporting the Imbert English Group will be leaving and even some from the congregation. Last night we had a gathering for a few of them to say farewell. We ate , we gave experiences and played music. People talked about their favorite times preaching , whether it was with small children who truly understood about Jehovah or other scenarios where Jehovah helped us to find someone we were looking for. The night was filled with happiness and appreciation for the privilege to be here with our brothers in Dominican Republic.

On that note, the friends who have been leaving have studies and return visits that they need taken care of. So they've been handing them out to whoever is in need of studies or would be able to help their student. This is where my funny experience starts. So the other night I was on my way to a return visit and saw a young man named Eric who study with the Cornelius family. He was waiting outside the Spanish meeting and so I ran across the road to say hello. He's very shy so I always try to say hi to him. When I saw him his face lit up! He exclaimed "Cornelius is leaving! You are my teacher now !" You can imagine my shock at the statement because The Cornelius family never told me that they wanted me to study with Eric or anything about him. So I said "ok so I'll see you at our meeting tomorrow morning !" and let him go into the Spanish meeting that was about to start. The next morning he came to the meeting and sat with me. He even read a scripture during the watchtower study! After the meeting we got to talk more and Eric told me that he is studying in Spanish already but that he still wants more in English! So he told me that I should come by Wednesday at 9:30 for his study. He had set up this whole study on his own!!! It was so awesome. So I decided that instead of actually "studying" with him that we would consider the watchtower study for each Sunday and help him prepare a comment. That way I'm not getting in the way of his Spanish studies. Eric truly has the spark tho. He'll do Great things with what he's learning. I'm just looking forward to see him progress even more.

Below is a picture of the Cornelius family, mom and I. We were so sad to see them go.

We hope you friends are doing well. I know winter is killing you but know you always have an island getaway if you need a break.

Nos Vemos,
Aaron

A "Loud" shout of praise

Hey friends ! Sunday was such an amazing day! 6 of my bible students came to the meeting. I was in such shock. Right now I'm conducting about 12 bible studies and it's been truly crazy. I can't handle it by myself so Herby has been willing to come and help me out with studies every Sunday. Just yesterday we conducted studies with 8 different people after the meeting. So today is my day to sleep in and relax. After a day of students like that , you need to just chill out. I don't have many pictures to share right now but I'll try to take some soon.

We've had such a large group at the meetings because of the group of Americans that came to support us. After the meeting, it was so loud I could barely hear myself think! I couldn't help but think what a LOUD shout of praise that was.

Hope you friends are doing well and we think of you often.

Nos Vemos ,
Aaron